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Nazi Conspiracy and Aggression, Volume One, Chapter Nine
[Page 644]
6. AGGRESSION AS A BASIC NAZI IDEA: MEIN KAMPF
Hitler's Mein Kampf, which became the Nazi statement of
faith, gave to the conspirators adequate foreknowledge of
the unlawful aims of the Nazi leadership. It was not only
Hitler's political testament; by adoption it became theirs.
Mein Kampf may be described as the blueprint of the Nazi
aggression. Its whole tenor and content demonstrate that the
Nazi pursuit of aggressive designs was no mere accident
arising out of an immediate political situation in Europe
and the world. Mein Kampf establishes unequivocally that the
use of aggressive war to serve German aims in foreign policy
was part of the very creed of the Nazi party.
A great German philosopher once said that ideas have hands
and feet. It became the deliberate aim of the conspirators
to see to it that the idea, doctrines, and policies of Mein
Kampf should become the active faith and guide for action of
the German nation, and particularly of its malleable youth.
From 1933 to 1939 an extensive indoctrination in the ideas
of Mein Kampf was pursued in the schools and universities of
Germany, as well as in the Hitler Youth, under the direction
of Baldur von Schirach, and in the SA and SS, and amongst
the German population as a whole, by the agency of Rosenberg.
A copy of Mein Kampf was officially presented by the Nazis
to all newly married couples in Germany. [A copy of Mein
Kampf (D-660) submitted by the prosecution to the tribunal
contains the following dedication on the fly-leaf:
"To the newly married couple, Friedrich Rosebrock and
Else Geborene Zum Beck, with best wishes for a happy
and blessed marriage. Presented by the Communal
Administration on the occasion of their marriage on 14
November 1940. For the Mayor, the Registrar."
This copy of Mein Kampf, which was the 1945 edition,
contains the information that the number of copies-
published to date amount to 6,250,000.]
As a result of the efforts of the conspirators, this book,
blasphemously called "The Bible of the German people,"
poisoned a generation and distorted the outlook of a whole
people. For as the SS General von dem Bach-Zelewski
testified before the Tribunal, [on 7 January 1946] if it is
preached for years, as long as ten years, that the Slav
peoples are inferior races and that the Jews are subhuman,
then it must logically follow that the killing of millions
of these human beings is accepted as a natural phenomenon.
From Mein Kampf the way leads directly to the furnaces of
Auschwitz and the gas chambers of Maidanek.
What the commandments of Mein Kampf were may be indicated by
quotations from the book which fall into two main categories.
The first category is that of general expression of Hitler's
belief in the necessity of force as the means of solving
international problems. The second category is that of Hitler's
more explicit declarations on the policy which Germany should pursue.
Most of the quotations in the second category come from the
last three chapters -- 13, 14, and 15 -- of Part II of Mein
Kampf, in which Hitler's views on foreign policy were
expounded. The significance of this may be grasped from the
fact that Part II of Mein Kampf was first published in 1927,
less than two years after the Locarno Pact and within a few
months of Germany's
[Page 646]
entry into the League of Nations. The date of the publication of
these passages, therefore, brands them as a repudiation of the
policy of international cooperation embarked upon by Stresseman,
and as a deliberate defiance of the attempt to establish, through
the League of Nations, the rule of law in international affairs.
The following are quotations showing the general view held
by Hitler and accepted and propagated by the conspirators
concerning war and aggression generally. On page 556 of Mein
Kampf, Hitler wrote:
"The soil on which we now live was not a gift bestowed
by Heaven on our forefathers. But they had to conquer
it by risking their lives. So also in the future our
people will not obtain territory, and therewith the
means of existence, as a favour from any other people,
but will have to win it by the power of a triumphant
sword."
On page 145, Hitler revealed his own personal attitude
toward war. Of the years of peace before 1914 he wrote:
"Thus I used to think it an ill-deserved stroke of bad
luck that I had arrived too late on this terrestrial
globe, and I felt chagrined at the idea that my life
would have to run its course along peaceful and orderly
lines. As a boy I was anything but a pacifist and all
attempts to make me so turned out futile."
On page 162 Hitler wrote of war in these words:
"In regard to the part played by humane feeling, Moltke
stated that in time of war the essential thing is to
get a decision as quickly as possible and that the most
ruthless methods of fighting are at the same time the
most humane. When people attempt to answer this
reasoning by highfalutin talk about aesthetics, etc.,
only one answer can be given. It is that the vital
questions involved in the struggle of a nation for its
existence must not be subordinated to any aesthetic
considerations."
Hitler's assumption of an inevitable law of struggle for
survival is linked up in Chapter II of Book I of Mein Kampf,
with the doctrine of Aryan superiority over other races and
the right of Germans in virtue of this superiority to
dominate and use other peoples for their own ends. The whole
of Chapter II of Mein Kampf is dedicated to this "master
race" theory and, indeed, many of the later speeches of
Hitler were mainly repetitive of Chapter II.
On page 256, the following sentiments appear:
"Had it not been possible for them to employ members of
the inferior race which they conquered, the Aryans
would
[Page 647]
never have been in a position to take the first steps
on the road which led them to a later type of culture;
just as, without the help of certain suitable animals
which they were able to tame, they would never have
come to the invention of mechanical power, which has
subsequently enabled them to do without these beasts.
For the establishment of superior types of civilization
the members of inferior races formed one of the most
essential prerequisites."
In a later passage in Mein Kampf, at page 344, Hitler
applies these general ideas to Germany:
"If in its historical development the German people had
possessed the unity of herd instinct by which other
people have so much benefited, then the German Reich
would probably be mistress of the globe today. World
history would have taken another course, and in this
case no man can tell if what many blinded pacifists
hope to attain by petitioning, whining and crying may
not have been reached in this way; namely, a peace
which would not be based upon the waving of olive
branches and tearful misery-mongering of pacifist old
women, but a peace that would be guaranteed by the
triumphant sword of a people endowed with the power to
master the world and administer it in the service of a
higher civilization."
These passages emphasize clearly Hitler's love of war and
scorn of those whom he described as pacifists. The
underlying message of this book, which appears again and
again, is, firstly, that the struggle for existence requires
the organization and use of force; secondly, that the Aryan-
German is superior to other races and has the right to
conquer and rule them; thirdly, that all doctrines which
preach peaceable solutions of international problems
represent a disastrous weakness in a nation that adopts
them. Implicit in the whole of the argument is a fundamental
and arrogant denial of the possibility of any rule of law in
international affairs.
It is in the light of these general doctrines of Mein Kampf
that the more definite passages should be considered, in which
Hitler deals with specific problems of German foreign policy.
The very first page of the book contains a remarkable forecast
of Nazi policy:
"German-Austria must be restored to the great German
Motherland. And not, indeed on any grounds of economic
calculation whatsoever. No, no. Even if the union were
a matter of economic indifference, and even if it were
to be disadvantageous from the economic standpoint,
still it ought to
[Page 648]
take place. People of the same blood should be in the
same Reich. The German people will have no right to
engage in a colonial policy until they shall have
brought all their children together in one State. When
the territory of the Reich embraces all the Germans and
finds itself unable to assure them a livelihood, only
then can the moral right arise, from the need of the
people, to acquire foreign territory. The plough is
then the sword; and the tears of war will produce the
daily bread for the generations to come."
Hitler, at page 553, declares that the mere restoration of
Germany's frontiers as they were in 1914 would be wholly
insufficient for his purposes:
"In regard to this point I should like to make the
following statement: To demand that the 1914 frontiers
should be restored is a glaring political absurdity
that is fraught with such consequences as to make the
claim itself appear criminal. The confines of the Reich
as they existed in 1914 were thoroughly illogical;
because they were not really complete, in the sense of
including all the members of the German nation. Nor
were they reasonable, in view of the geographical
exigencies of military defense. They were not the
consequence of a political plan which had been well
considered and carried out, but they were temporary
frontiers established in virtue of a political struggle
that had not been brought to a finish; and indeed, they
were partly the chance result of circumstances."
In further elaboration of Nazi policy, Hitler does not
merely denounce the Treaty of Versailles; he desires to see
a Germany which is a world power with territory sufficient
for a future German people of a magnitude which he does not
define. On page 554 he declares:
"For the future of the German nation the 1914 frontiers
are of no significance ***"
"*******
"We National Socialists must stick firmly to the aim
that we have set for our foreign policy, namely, that
the German people must be assured the territorial area
which is necessary for it to exist on this earth. And
only for such action as is undertaken to secure those
ends can it be lawful in the eyes of God and our German
posterity to allow the blood of our people to be shed
once again. Before God, because we are sent into this
world with the commission to struggle for our daily
bread, as creatures to whom nothing is donated and who
must be able to win and hold their position as lord
[Page 649]
of the earth only through their own intelligence and
courage.
"And this justification must be established
also before our German posterity, on the grounds that
for each one who has shed his blood the life of a
thousand others will be guaranteed to posterity. The
territory on which one day our German peasants will !be
able to bring forth and nourish their sturdy sons will
justify the blood of the sons of the peasants that has
to be shed today. And the statesmen who will have
decreed this sacrifice may be persecuted by their
contemporaries, but posterity will absolve them from
all guilt for having demanded this offering from their
people."
At page 557 Hitler writes:
"Germany will either become a world power or will not
continue to exist at all. But in order to become a
world power, it needs that territorial magnitude which
gives it the necessary importance today and assures the
existence of its citizens."
"We must take our stand on the principles already
mentioned in regard to foreign policy, namely, the
necessity of bringing our territorial area into just
proportion with the number of our population. From the
past we can learn only one lesson, and that is that the
aim which is to be pursued in our political conduct
must be twofold, namely: (1) the acquisition of
territory as the objective of our foreign policy and
(2) the establishment of a new and uniform foundation
as the objective of our political activities at home,
in accordance with our doctrine of nationhood."
Now, these passages from Mein Kampf raise the question, here
did Hitler expect to find the increased territory beyond the
1914 boundaries of Germany? To this Hitler's answer is
sufficiently explicit. Reviewing the history of the German
Empire rom 1871 to 1918, he wrote, on page 132:
"Therefore, the only possibility which Germany had of
carrying a sound territorial policy into effect was
that of acquiring new territory in Europe itself.
Colonies cannot serve this purpose so long as they are
not suited for settlement by Europeans on a large
scale. In the nineteenth century it was no longer
possible to acquire such colonies by peaceful means.
Therefore, any attempt at such colonial expansion would
have meant an enormous military struggle. Consequently
it would have been more practical to undertake that
military struggle for new territory in Europe, rather
than to wage war for the acquisition of possessions
abroad.
[Page 650]
"Such a decision naturally demanded that the nation's
undivided energies should be devoted to it. A policy of
that kind, which requires for its fulfillment every
ounce of available energy on the part of everybody
concerned, cannot be carried into effect by half
measures or in a hesitant manner.
"The political leadership of the German Empire should then
have been directed exclusively to this goal. No political step
should have been taken in response to other considerations
than this task and the means of accomplishing it. Germany
should have been alive to the fact that such a goal could
have been reached only by war, and the prospect of war
should have been faced with calm and collected determination.
The whole system of alliances should have been envisaged and
valued from that standpoint.
"If new territory were to be acquired in Europe it must
have been mainly at Russia's cost, and once again the
new German Empire should have set out on its march
along the same road as was formerly trodden by the
Teutonic Knights, this time to acquire soil for the
German plough by means of the German sword and thus
provide the nation with its daily bread."
To this program of expansion in the East Hitler returns
again, at the end of Mein Kampf. After discussing the
insufficiency of Germany's pre-war frontiers, he again
points the path to the East and declares that the Drang nach
Osten, the drive to the East, must be resumed:
"Therefore we National Socialists have purposely drawn
a line through the line of conduct followed by pre-war
Germany in foreign policy. We put an end to the
perpetual Germanic march towards the South and West of
Europe and turn our eyes towards the lands of the East.
We finally put a stop to the colonial and trade policy
of pre-war times and pass over to the territorial
policy of the future. But when we speak of new
territory in Europe today we must principally think of
Russia and the border states subject to her."
Hitler was shrewd enough to see that his aggressive designs
in the East might be endangered by a defensive alliance
between Russia, France, and perhaps England. His foreign
policy, as outlined in Men Kampf, was to detach England and
Italy from France and Russia and to change the attitude of
Germany towards France from the defensive to the offensive.
On page 570 of Men Kampf he wrote:
"As long as the eternal conflict between France and
Germany is waged only in the form of a German defense
against the French attack, that conflict can never be
decided, and from
[Page 651]
century to century Germany will lose one position after
another. If we study the changes that have taken place,
from the twelfth century up to our day, in the
frontiers within which the German language is spoken,
we can hardly hope for a successful issue to result
from the acceptance and development of a line of
conduct which has hitherto been so detrimental for us.
"Only when the Germans have taken all this fully into
account will they cease from allowing the national will-
to-live to wear itself out in merely passive defense;
but they will rally together for a last decisive
contest with France. And in this contest the essential
objective of the German nation will be fought for. Only
then will it be possible to put an end to the eternal
Franco-German conflict which has hitherto proved so
sterile.
"Of course it is here presumed that Germany
sees in the suppression of France nothing more than a
means which will make it possible for our people
finally to expand in another quarter. Today there are
eighty million Germans in Europe. And our foreign
policy will be recognized as rightly conducted only
when, after barely a hundred years, there will be 250
million Germans living on this Continent, not packed
together as the coolies in the factories of another
Continent but as tillers of the soil and workers whose
labour will be a mutual assurance for their existence."
Mein Kampf, taken in conjunction with the facts of Nazi Germany's
subsequent behavior towards other countries, shows that from the
very first moment that they attained power, and indeed long before
that time, Hitler and his confederates were engaged in planning and
fomenting aggressive war. Events have proved that Mein Kampf was no
mere literary exercise to be treated with easy indifference, as
unfortunately it was treated for so long. It was the expression of
a fanatical faith in force and fraud as the means to Nazi dominance in
Europe, if not in the whole world. In accepting and propagating the
jungle philosophy of Mein Kampf, the Nazi conspirators deliberately
set about to push civilization over the precipice of war.

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